Phase behavior of the ternary system
Figure 1 shows the ternary diagram of octane/n -propanol/water at room temperature, in which the component content is expressed as the mass fraction. It is clearly seen that there are two regions in the ternary diagram, i.e. , multiphase region and single-phase (microemulsion region). For the multiphase region, the ternary system is turbid liquid under stirring, and it transforms to two phases quickly after standing by for a few minutes. But, further addition ofn -propanol makes this multiphase region shifting to single-phase, and the ternary system becomes optically isotropic and transparent, which are typical properties of microemulsion. So constructed diagram demonstrates clearly that the immiscible two phases of octane and water can become a stably homogeneous system in the presence ofn -propanol with a suitable amount, by contrast, this similar phenomenon was shown in the previous study as well.28Interestingly, the continuous area of the single-phase region in this ternary system accounts for about 22% of the total phase diagram and the single-phase channel extends from oil-rich to water-rich region, hence, it is thought that this novel SFME system is suitable to examine the influence of the microemulsion structure transition on the depolymerization process.20